by Krista Wolf
Squeezing so hard it actually hurt, I pressed the button. The transmit light went green.
“MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAYDAY!” I screamed. “WE’RE SURVIVORS OF THE CERVIGNO AVALANCHE! WE’RE TRANSMITTING FROM AN OLD RADIO TOWER ABOUT TWO MILES WEST OF THE OLD RESORT! WE NEED HELP! WE NEED—”
I stopped as the transmit light blinked off. It fluttered a few times, then came on again… only this time a much dimmer green than before.
“MAYDAY! MAYDAY!” I cried frantically. “REPEAT: WE’RE AT A RADIO TOWER WEST OF—”
The transmission failed mid-sentence as the light died. So did my hopes.
So did everything.
Damn.
Numbly, I pressed the microphone’s button again and again. Nothing. Not a sound, not a click, not a flutter.
We were so close.
I looked from Boone, to Shane, to Jeremy. Everyone’s face was the same. Everyone’s expression was—
“SURVIVORS THIS IS CERVIGNO STATION…”
The voice coming over the speaker was barely audible. It broke in between bursts of static. We could only just hear it over the wind.
“…REPEAT BACK, OVER?”
The lights behind the dials were slowly dying. The once-precious microphone might as well have been a rock in my hand.
We were holding our breath. Shivering against the cold. And then:
“…SURVIVORS AT THE TOWER… STAY WHERE YOU ARE.”
My heart soared. Somewhere beside me, someone squeezed my hand.
“REPEAT: REMAIN AT THE RADIO TOWER. REMAIN AT THE RADIO TOWER.”
The dials died. There was a whine as the last of the power drained from the chargeable batteries of the old ham unit. Before it did though, two last words droned over the speaker:
“WE’RE COMING.”
Fifty
MORGAN
I had no way of knowing when the first snowmobile showed up, because all sense of time was gone. It could’ve been an hour later. It could’ve been ten minutes.
All that mattered was that it did.
We hugged each other so hard Shane nearly broke my back as the series of bouncing lights beamed into view. One snowmobile… two. Three, four, and five. They roared through the storm, plowing over hills and cutting through drifts. Revving their engines so beautifully, welcomely loud.
One moment we were standing there shivering, huddled around the leg of the ancient tower.
The next we were surrounded by a dozen or more people.
Jackets were thrown over us. Blankets too. I don’t know when we were separated, but suddenly I wasn’t near Jeremy or Shane or Boone anymore. I couldn’t even see them. All I could see were people in bright red jackets, swarming around me. Giving me water… gloves… some kind of scarf. Lifting me up and securing me to the back of a snowmobile, strapped tightly behind the person driving it.
“ARE YOU ALRIGHT BACK THERE?”
I nodded into the driver’s back, making sure he could feel my reply.
“CAN YOU HOLD ON?”
I nodded again, and then suddenly I was being torn away — ripped from our little base camp and thrown headlong into the swirling, churning storm.
Wait…
The little voice in my head cried out, missing the others. Wondering where they’d gone, and if they were okay, and whether or not we were all even going to the same place.
A flash of panic hit me. It cut through all the elation I felt at being rescued.
What if we actually weren’t?
I couldn’t even conceive it — not seeing the guys again. At least not seeing them until we were back on campus, when everything would be totally, totally different.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to tap my snowmobile driver on the shoulder and find out if we’d be together again, and if not, tell him to take me back. But I just couldn’t do it. After everything I’d been through, physically and emotionally, I barely had the strength to hold on.
The ride back was hard, even painful… especially since I was effectively blind. My whole body ached. My stomach felt sick at being suddenly full, all that water being tossed and sloshed violently around.
Eventually the wind died and the engine stopped and the snowmobile skidded to a halt. I was grabbed immediately by fresh new hands. Laid out on a stretcher and carried somewhere warm and noisy and impossibly bright.
I only remembered bits and pieces of the next few hours. People talking excitedly, everywhere. An ambulance ride to a nearby hospital, where the siren was not only strange and foreign to me, but also high-pitched and annoying.
Once there, there was the flash of a hundred cameras. More people than even before. I was wheeled through clean, clinical hallways and placed in a large white room. I half-protested as an old woman with exceptionally large hands cut through the shredded fabric of my ski pants. She helped me remove my clothing and gave me fresh linens. The cute little ski outfit I’d put on happily almost a week ago had been replaced with a drab, hospital gown.
Only then did I realize vaguely there was an IV already in my arm.
I drifted. Maybe off to sleep, or maybe just semi-consciousness. Either way, time passed. Maybe there was something in my IV. Maybe, maybe, maybe…
Maybe you’ll never see them again.
I wanted to be warm. I wanted an electric blanket! I remember asking for one and being told it wasn’t a good idea, and that my temperature needed to be brought up more naturally.
Someone put a phone in my ear. My parents, yapping away. Screaming with happiness and elation that I was alive, and yet…
And yet they’re not even here.
It wasn’t all that surprising. Wherever they were, I was sure they were busy. I laughed, and it wasn’t a good laugh. A shiver ran through me as I finally hung up.
The nurse or whatever she was brought me another blanket, and I lay back for a moment just enjoying the feeling of not being cold. She told me not to talk. That I really needed to rest, speaking to me in perfect English although with a thick Italian accent.
I drifted off for a second time, and woke up feeling even more aware. The room was empty. It was silent too, except for some low voices. Except for…
SSSSSWISH!
“A-HA! She’s back!”
The curtain around me was yanked backward, and suddenly I was staring at Boone. He was grinning down at me from his own hospital gown, holding onto his own IV mounted on one of those wheeled push-stands.
Behind him, in a chair, was Jeremy. They both smiled.
“W—Where’s…”
“Shane?” Jeremy laughed. “In the bathroom, for the last half hour. I think he’s trying to pass a brick.”
Boone laughed too, and my body flooded with relief. They were here! My guys. My men. My lovers, my heroes, my saviors… my—
“Forget about him though,” said Boone. The hospital gown barely fit around his body, and the back of it was comically open. “There’s someone else here you need to see...”
He put two big fingers in his mouth and whistled, and I heard the door to the room click open. I couldn’t see past the curtain’s edge, but suddenly there was a bloodcurdling scream — one so familiar that I bolted upright.
I used the last of my energy to turn my head…
… just in time to see Faith running toward me, tears streaming down both her cheeks.
~ Epilogue ~
MORGAN
“No fair! You ordered in!”
Jeremy smirked in mock disappointment as he popped open one of the containers. Chinese was his favorite and we both knew it. Steam rose, hot and fragrant, from a compact brick of fried rice.
“I said I was getting dinner,” I called out from the bedroom. “Not that I was making it.”
It was semantics of course, but it was no less hilarious. Very often I shirked my duties when it was my night to cook. I did it by ordering in, trading off, or somehow ‘persuading’ one of the others to take my turn.
And oh, could I ever persuade them…
“Tonight’s specia
l though,” Jeremy protested. “Tonight’s supposed to be—”
“I know what its supposed to be,” I replied. “And don’t worry baby. It’ll be everything you ever wanted… with a bonus.”
I kissed him on the way into the kitchen, and it was one of those long, hot, end of the day kisses I’d grown to love so much. He squeezed my ass through my bathrobe as I twisted away, my hair still wet from the shower.
“Shane?”
“On his way,” I said.
He picked an egg roll out from its noisy wrapper. “We don’t have to wait for him to eat do we?”
I smacked it out of his hand. “Of course we do,” I smiled. “Special night, remember?”
Grabbing a couple of beers from the fridge I walked over to where Boone sat sprawled on the couch. He pulled me into his lap, eliciting a startled gasp as he began sliding his hands into my robe. I set the beers quickly down on the coffee table, before fending him off.
“Dinner first,” I said, pushing his hands away. “Remember?”
He settled for a kiss, one that was no less hot or passionate than the one I’d just gotten from Jeremy. Somewhere deep in the folds of my robe, I felt a flutter in my tummy.
“You’re such a tease.”
“Am I?” I asked sweetly, intentionally hooking a finger into my mouth.
He twisted the cap from his beer with one big hand. “At times yeah.”
“Well then its a good thing I always follow through in the end.”
I looked at the clock. It was still early. Shit, I wasn’t even hungry. But we’d promised to have dinner together for once — all four of us — despite our busy schedules. And so…
“A year,” Jeremy swore, bouncing into a chair. He turned his attention to the television, which was playing nothing in particular. “I can’t believe it’s been a whole year.”
“Not just a whole year,” I said, pouring a glass of wine. “A great year.”
“An interesting year,” Boone chuckled. “That’s for sure.”
The wine tasted wonderful as it slid down my throat, warming me from within. It was our anniversary. Or as Jeremy had dubbed it, our ‘avalanchiversary’. One year since being buried on that mountain. One year since we’d all met at the hotel…
And oh what a difference a year makes…
“You getting dressed?” Boone asked casually.
“I am dressed.”
He laughed. “You’re eating dinner in your bathrobe?”
“Maybe I want to be comfortable,” I shrugged.
The door flew open, and Shane stepped inside. He was still wet from the rain.
“You guys waited?”
I threw my arms around him and kissed him, long and hard. His hands instinctively went to my hips. They slid upward, along my ribs…
“Morgan was gonna eat an egg roll but I stopped her,” Jeremy said accusingly. “Good thing I was here.”
A year, the little voice in my head repeated dreamily. A Whole. Damned. Year.
One year since we’d returned to the States. One year since we’d gotten back to campus, and pretty much immediately picked up where we let off. It was strange at first, going out on a real date with Shane… and then Jeremy… and then Boone. Sitting across from them at an actual table. Eating real food, walking along a real street, holding hands through real weather.
Sleeping with them in a real bed…
We’d been celebrities at first, if just for a little while. The Cervigno Survivors. The Fantastic Four. We’d been celebrated in the news and on campus, thrown avalanche-themed parties by the fraternities and alumni.
But just as with anything else like that, fame was fleeting. In just a few weeks, we were students again. Four very lucky people who’d gotten through a terrible ordeal.
Or a not-so-terrible ordeal, if you looked at it from our perspective.
One by one we dated, and the guys had given me all the space they promised. It seemed wholly unfair. I felt almost guilty during the process. A few weeks went by where we’d hang out alone, one on one, just me and one of the guys.
Then there was the night both Jeremy and Shane had come over, and things had gotten complicated all over again.
Not to mention the time Shane and Boone had both taken me into the city…
It came to me all at once, only a month after we’d all returned. Jeremy’s words from our last night in the hotel, echoing through my brain:
Don’t choose.
I called them together and told them. I couldn’t choose. I wouldn’t choose. I’d date none of them if I had to, because picking any one of them wouldn’t be fair to the others. I liked them all.
No… that wasn’t right either.
I loved them all.
After looking at each other for a moment, they stared back at me in unison. Not one of them was mad. Not one of them was disappointed.
“You don’t have to choose,” said Jeremy simply. “If you’re willing to date us all.”
That was eleven months ago now — a year since our disaster on the mountain. A year since I’d gone from being single and lonely…
… to having three gorgeous, dedicated boyfriends.
“I can’t believe you canceled with Faith and Brandon!”
Faith and Brandon — yet another happy byproduct of the Cervigno resort avalanche. I’d been overjoyed to find out Faith had not only made it down the mountain, but had been keeping rescue efforts alive. It was she who’d told everyone where they should be looking. She who was responsible for the helicopter that almost found us that day, in the short break between storms.
“Three hot guys, Morgan?” she’d chided me from the hospital room. “C’mon, you have to pick one! Give me my choice of the other two!”
She was half-kidding of course, but she also wasn’t. And if she only knew the extent of things…
In time I’d tell her everything. In time we’d both be picking her jaw up off the table in the little coffee shop in which I’d spilled all the beans. I laughingly told her she wasn’t to hit on a single one of my guys, and that if I caught her doing it I’d bury her beneath another avalanche of my own bitter wrath.
Then I did the next best thing: I set her up with Boone’s cute little brother.
“We have a hundred other nights to hang out with Faith and Brandon,” I said, handing the last beer to Shane. He took it eagerly, downing a third of it in a single pull. “But tonight?” I smiled wickedly. “Tonight belongs to us.”
I pulled on my belt and dropped my robe. Beneath it, the blood-red corset and lacy garters of my anniversary outfit drew the attention of all three of my gorgeous lovers.
All three of my live-in boyfriends.
Boone rose up from the couch. Shane stepped in immediately, sliding an arm around my waist.
“Is this the bonus you mentioned?” asked Jeremy, raising an eyebrow.
“No,” I smirked. “That is.”
I pointed to the other side of the counter, where a giant can of cling peaches rested next to a can-opener. The others chuckled briefly at the joke.
“FINALLY!” Jeremy laughed. “After all this time!”
They closed in around me, my three handsome men. I was the luckiest girl on campus… or rather, the luckiest girl off-campus, in our new, recently-decorated apartment.
“You sure you want to eat first?” Jeremy asked, moving in behind me. I sighed as he lowered his mouth to my neck.
“Forgetting about your peaches already?” I giggled.
“No,” he said, sliding a hand between my legs. “Not even a little bit.”
I was hedged in on all sides. Shane’s hand slid over my ass, while Boone’s lips moved in, pressing insistently against mine. A minute later I was kissing all of them… lost in lust… barely even aware of the spread of food left out on the counter.
None of that mattered. All that mattered was the love and attention and security that surrounded me whenever they were all home at once. I fell backward, into someone’s arms. Felt myself bei
ng carried, gently, in the direction of the bedroom.
Just keeping doing this…
Jeremy’s words again. Wise words. Wonderful words.
Maybe it all works out?
I glanced up one last time, toward the mantle of our own fireplace. Much smaller than the one we’d used to survive, it still contained a stark reminder of the abandoned hotel. Resting heavily atop a large wooden shelf the guys had built for me:
The old ham radio… still without its missing crank.
“Screw dinner,” said Shane, dropping me onto the bed.
“Screw the peaches too,” Jeremy agreed, sliding up beside me. “At least for now.”
My eyes fell on Boone, who was climbing over me. He nudged my thighs apart with his hands, before planting a trail of lingering kisses over the lace-covered expanse of my lower belly…
“For once I’m gonna agree with Beavis and Butthead,” he murmured, nuzzling his way between my legs. I hissed through clenched teeth as his mouth took advantage of my crotchless panties.
“Something’s definitely getting screwed…”
Need more Reverse Harem?
First of all, thanks for checking out Snowed In. Here’s hoping you were totally buried in it!
If you loved the story, it would be equally amazing if you could leave a review on Amazon. Even a sentence or two makes a big difference to an author, and helps other readers discover the book.
And for another sweltering hot roller-coaster ride? Check out: Quadruple Duty. Below you’ll find a preview of the incredibly sexy cover, plus the first several chapters so you can check it out for yourself.
Thanks so much, and enjoy!
Krista
One
SAMMARA
The asshole was a quarter of an hour late — fifteen long, ass-dragging minutes. No call, no text. Nothing. And as every girl who’s ever sat alone at a crowded bar knows, fifteen minutes can be an eternity and forever.
Just go.
The idea was tempting, but I’d really liked this guy. Or to be more accurate, I’d liked his profile. He looked dark and handsome, even in the weird, over-the-head selfies he’d probably spent hours agonizing over.
